Poverty, malnutrition Karnataka’s shame

Though Karnataka claims to be a progressive state, deprivation due to poverty and malnutrition are a major challenge in at least 10 districts, including Haveri from where Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai hails. The other districts flagged for poverty by the Karnataka Human Development Report 2022 are Yadgir, Kalaburgi, Raichur, Koppal, Ballari, Bidar, Gadag, Bagalkot and Vijaypura. The districts where nutrition is a concern are Kalaburagi, Raichur, Yadgiri, Koppal, Ballari, Bidar and Gadag. The report has suggested that the government should focus on housing and agricultural interventions to increase farm productivity and thereby lift at least 20% of the population from poverty level in Yadgir, Raichur and Kalaburagi. The report has also recommended that anaemic children in anganwadis should get special nutrition for 90 days to improve haemoglobin levels, adding that Rs 85 crore should be invested to eradicate child anaemia in the next five years. The findings of the report only point to the continuous neglect of North Karnataka region by successive governments.

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One of the biggest consequences of poverty is child malnutrition, leading to problems like stunting and wasting. A report released by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2019 had found that 35.2% of children under the age of five were underweight, while 36.2% were stunted. As per Niti Aayog data, there were nearly 3.5 lakh moderately malnourished children and about 8,000 severely malnourished children in the state as of August 2021. Almost similar results came to light when the state government conducted a morbidity screening in 2021 in view of the pandemic. In March 2023, a survey in Karnataka’s most impoverished district, Yadgir, revealed that 64% of children under the age of three were either stunted, wasted or underweight. Yadgir is among the 112 districts in the country identified by Niti Aayog as having the lowest composite indicators in terms of health, nutrition, education, agriculture, financial inclusion, skill development, and basic infrastructure. This establishes a trend of governmental neglect over the decades, a situation that has not changed even with the grant of special status to North Karnataka in 2013.

The government does not need to look far to know what needs to be done. The 2001 Nanjundappa Committee had conducted a comprehensive study of North Karnataka’s backwardness across 35 parameters and had used the data to categorise the taluks into four groups—relatively developed, backward, more backward, and most backward. The government only needs to dig this report, and several later ones, and merely implement the recommendations therein. Unfortunately, when it comes to the North Karnataka region, politicians are liberal with lip sympathy rather than with any concrete action.